Vast Deposits of Methane Hydrate in Benham Rise Could Make the Philippines Richest in the World

Some experts revealed that the vast deposits of methane hydrate in Benham Rise could make the Philippines as one of the richest country in the world as it will make the country into a natural gas exporter worldwide. Benham Rise is a 13-million-hectare undersea region rich in minerals and huge natural gas deposits located in the Philippine Sea, East of Luzon island.

The mineral-rich Benhan Rise is owned by the Philippines according to the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that approved the Philippines' territorial claim to Benham Rise, which the national government claimed as an extension of the Philippines' continental shelf.

Benham Rise was presumably discovered by an American geologist named Admiral Andrew Ellicot Kennedy Benham. It is located between 40 and 2,000 meters below the waterline during the year 1933. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources' (DENR), indicated that Benham Rise has large deposits of methane in solid form.

Some mineral experts noted that methane clathrate also called methane hydrate or methane ice is a solid clathrate compound in which a huge amount of methane is trapped inside a crystal like structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice. Significant deposits of methane clathrate have been found beneath
Antarctic ice and in sedimentary deposits along continental margins
worldwide.

The huge methane ice (burning ice) deposits found in Benham Rise off the coast of Eastern Luzon could turn the Philippines into a natural gas exporters just like the country's of Russia, Canada and Qatar. Natural gas is a fossil fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking, and electricity generation.

It is also used as fuel for vehicles and as a chemical feedstock in the manufacture of plastics and other commercially important organic chemicals. Aside from natural gas, the deposits of methane ice in Benham Rise are believed to be so huge, it could make the Philippines one of the richest countries in the world in the near future.

What is Methane Hydrate:

Vast Deposits of Methane Hydrate in Benham Rise Could Make the Philippines Richest in the World
Reviewed by Phil Newsome
on
5/16/2016
Rating: 5